Pizza Pizza!

Who knew making your own pizza at home was so easy and delicious! You need to start 2 hours ahead to let the dough rise but if you know it is pizza night just set a timer for 2 hours before time to eat!

I have been practicing and made 3 pizzas so far.
It is so much cheaper then delivery!
I made 3 - 14 inch pizzas with the 20 dollars we spend on one. We have a good italian place on the corner that we were getting our pizzas from, but the quality and taste has been declining lately, left me dreading getting a pizza from there, so I went on a search to make my own.

Here are the 4 things you need for good pizza at home:
15 inch pizza stone-I found one at albertsons for 12.99!
Dough-croutoncrackerjacks on you tube
Sauce-erikeats.com
Toppings-what ever you like on your pizza!

The dough recipe I found is so easy and makes a perfect 14 inch pizza:
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp active dry yeast
1 tblsp olive oil
3/4 cup 100* water
2 tblsp sugar

Put the sugar and warm water in your mixer bowl, stir, add yeast and leave it for 5 minutes. then add flour, salt, and oil, mix on low with dough hook for about 8 minutes, fold dough over on its self to make a nice round ball, place in a bowl with some olive oil smeared in it, roll the ball around to coat, cover with plastic wrap and place in oven (off) for 2 hours.

For the sauce:
1 can 28 oz good quality tomato sauce
1 can 6 oz tomato paste
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp italian seasoning blend
Mix until smooth, no cooking required, set aside to get the flavors to meld while your dough rises for 2 hours.

When ready to make your pizza, get your dough out of oven, place a pizza stone in your oven and turn to 450*
Shake some corn meal or semolina on your counter, start stretching the dough out to make a pizza crust, I watched many you tube videos on how to do this. Erikeats.com has a great video on this technique.

Get the hot stone out of oven and place your dough on top carefully, and start topping your pizza!

Make sure to buy good quality ingredients, get your cheese slices (more flavor then shredded) at the deli counter, same with the pepperoni, and 1/2 pound of thinly sliced mozzarella and provolone cost me 3.50 each and lasted for 3 pizzas! You can also top with bell pepper, mushroom, jalapenos, once you have your toppings on sprinkle parmesan all over the top and place in oven for about 10-15 minutes, keep an eye on it! Take out when you are happy with the color and let sit for 5-10 minutes, slice and enjoy the best pizza ever!